1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to location and navigational systems and to the determination of local and remote position information in ad-hoc landline and wireless systems, including the utilization of unique identification addresses, such as telephone numbers or Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, for such purposes as providing real-time location information, maps, routing, and direction finding.
2. Description of the Related Art
Navigational systems, defined as systems that provide a unit's local position and a way of planning a course around the units local position, sometimes to a remote position, such as in-vehicle navigations systems do, are well know in the art. Typically, an in-vehicle navigation system consists of a display screen, processing unit, storage unit, and user input mechanism. The storage system typically contains, for example, maps and travel information used for navigational purposes. Travel information may include such items as points of interest, local restaurants, theaters, municipality locations, and the like.
Determining a local position in a navigation system has typically been done by integrating or connecting Global Positioning System (GPS) technology into the local navigational system. New positioning determination systems include network-assisted wireless location systems, such as TOA (Time-of-Arrival), and network assisted GPS systems for determining the local navigation system's position. The unit's location is then displayed on the device and is available for various applications, such as in the case of a commuter seeking the shortest route to a location in a specific area or a user wanting to find the nearest gas station.
Destination locations are typically determined by manually accessing stored information from a local database or navigational information storage system, such as a DVD disc or CD-ROM discs. Location information is found by searching through categories of information until the desired location is found, or alternatively, by cross referencing telephone numbers with addresses by means of the local storage system. Conventionally, numerous discs, or even numerous sets of discs, are required to provide adequate detailed geographic coverage, including address and telephone information about a given metropolitan area. That is, conventional in-vehicle navigation systems require that an extensive collection of storage discs be carried within the vehicle. Additionally, prior art DVD and CD-ROM disc based systems require periodic updating. That is, even after a user has purchased a set of discs, new replacement discs must be acquired, for example, as new roads and points of interest information are updated.
As an additional drawback, some navigation systems that do not have the storage capability, such as wireless PDAs (Personal Digital Assistant) or typical cell phones, are not able to implement cross referencing of telephone numbers to addresses locally due to the large memory and storage size requirements of such an operation and low computational power of the devices. Furthermore, since most businesses and individuals can change their telephone numbers numerous times while at their current address determining destination locations from telephone numbers on a locally-stored database inherently causes the information to be out of date and inaccurate. These and other changes, such as a new telephone line or an area code change, would invalidate the current version of locally-stored DVD or CD-ROM disc information. As a further drawback, mobile navigation devices and stationary landline computing devices are not always associated with telephone numbers, but rather Internet Protocol (IP) addresses or the like.
Convention art systems are typically incapable of obtaining position information over dynamically-configured connections such as, for example, current fleet tracking systems that require predefined user and/or device configurations before the transfer of position information is possible. Current systems for determining the location of numerous mobile navigation devices typically require users to register each device's network address, or the like, into a database. These types of systems typically have user/asset account creation procedures that are static and not dynamic. Each remote unit, which has access to its current position information from a connected positioning device or other positioning means, has an application that responds to a request for position information from a centralized server. These systems are viable options for organizations that must govern the tracking of assets that belong to the organization. However, should an outside system or individual desire to track another organization's asset for a short period of time and for one time only, the organization must then provide the network address of that asset as well as possibly providing permission to the outside organization or individual for the duration of their tracking needs. Once the permitted tracking has been accomplished, the system must shut down the outside account and possibly change the network address for security purposes. Additional security measures may be necessary to disable access by the outside user if the system has a firewall or other network security system in place.
Thus, a need exists for a system that determines local and/or remote position information which does not require an extensive collection of DVD or CD-ROM discs, which is able to provide location and destination address or position information given a telephone number, and which is up-to-date and reliable and can be accessed via a networked online server(s). Additionally, the need exists for a system that determines local and/or remote position information of devices that are not always associated by telephone numbers, but IP addresses or the like, and which can obtain such position information instantaneously and share it, by means of authentication and authorization protocols, without requiring any prior configuration.